A Day in Our Life

First Ever Photo Dump!

I've never done this before, usually I try to have a theme for a post or make it seem like there is one. However, I just realized I had pictures all the way back from Easter that I still haven't posted! So here you go, our first ever photo dump, which I'm sure is only the first of many, haha!

All showered and dressed up for Easter Sunday Mass- two thirds of this outfit would be shed before eating Easter dinner at noon :)

Hunting for Easter eggs for the first time- she totally didn't get why she was looking for them, but loved the treats she had inside! I believe the Easter Bunny brought bracelets, goldfish crackers, M&M's, jelly beans, and new crayons.

Snugging up with Grandma Deb

This girl loooooves to color! She loves crayons and colored pencils and will color with them anywhere- literally. We have learned how to get crayon off of window trim, carpets, walls, grout, etc.... She also has a forbidden love with markers- I don't think I need to elaborate on why they it's forbidden.

Toward the beginning of April Cailyn decided she wanted to start sitting on the potty. We made a huge deal out of every time she went on the toilet and clapped and danced, whooped and hollered! She has an accident every now and then, but is usually dry through naps and even overnight. I can't believe how big she's getting!

Our roller coaster of a Spring brought us some beautiful popsicle-perfect weather

We also suffered our first skinned knees, each on a separate occasion within 36 hours of each other. Cailyn now slightly understands what a "boo-boo" is.

This was May 2, I really wanted a picture of her dimples and sparkling eyes next to my tulips in the bizarre snow- she was only interested in the fact that there was snow on the ground. I took at least 20 pictures and every one of them looked like this, just jumping in the snow

We made a one day trip to Sioux City a few weeks ago and these attempts were made right before we left at about 8:30. It had been a long day for all three of us....plus I'm pretty sure she was pulled away from an iPad to take this picture.

Jerod's mom came up for a couple days this past week and hung out with Cailyn. Of course, Cailyn loved having her there and they did a lot together: walked to the park, checked out the library, visited Daddy at work, and colored pictures. Here, they were making banana bread- it was messy, but they both had a blast :)

Uncle Tanner came up with Papa Bret to pick up Grandma- notice he's holding an iPad...I rest my case.

We have had the opportunity to babysit our friends' son who is 7 months old and Cailyn LOVES him! This warms my heart because I know she is going to be such a good big sister. Hopefully there's no such thing as smothering your baby brother with too much love!

What kind of bun are we baking??

I'm not gonna lie- even though I was the one who insisted on not finding out about Cailyn's gender during our first pregnancy when my hubby wanted to, it kinda sorta ate me alive until she finally made her debut! This time around I just couldn't wait to know, and, of course, wouldn't you know, Jerod was the one who didn't care if we peeked or not- ugh! However, since he said he didn't care I took that as a, "Yes, of course we should find out!"

So without further ado.....

Ultrasound Pictures!

Just kidding!

We are very excited to meet this little man in about four and a half more months. I feel a lot less pressure to have a boy now in the future- not that Jerod cared, I just think most guys say they don't care but they secretly all want a little boy. So now he has a baseball player!

Seattle

So, over my spring break (which was about a month and a half ago) my mom, my sister, Cailyn, and I all flew out to Seattle to visit some family. My mom's sister, Michelle, and her family live there, plus my mom's dad, my Grandpa Danny, my Grandma Naty, and my uncle Daniel. It was a short trip, we flew out on Saturday afternoon, stayed Sunday and Monday, and flew back to Iowa on Tuesday, but it was very relaxing and full of much family time.

This was Cailyn's first big trip and her first plane ride. Bonus part? She's under the age of 2 so she flew for free! I was so worried that she was going to be bothered by the change in cabin pressure and scream the whole way to Seattle, but she did just fantastic and actually loved being on the planes. She spent most of the time watching Tangled or episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the iPad with her new headphones or sliding the window shade up and down and almost slamming her fingers in it every time.

Usually the weather in Seattle is pretty wet, but thankfully it was even warmer and sunnier there than it was in Iowa! We took advantage of it and walked up to a park in my Aunt Michelle's neighborhood that was the perfect size for Cailyn- she loved it.

Double Slide?? What?!!

Wouldn't you love to look out your front door and have this view? Ahhh....

Cailyn and Aunt Michelle before a loooong shopping trip in the mall, little girl was a trooper

A well-deserved run about Grandpa Danny's yard after shopping

Their flowering bushes are already blooming and so gorgeous

The best part of our trip was being able to spend so much time with the family we have that lives there, and eating some delicious food. No matter how long it's been since I've visited Seattle, it always feels so great to be there, almost like a second home. W'vee visited every other summer since I was 6 years old or so, and of course with getting older comes more responsibility and less time for trips, so I'm always grateful for a jaunt out West.

I'm especially happy to get to visit with my Grandpa Danny, it always warms my heart to see him. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a few years ago, and though it is difficult for him at times, he is so determined to trust that God will take care of him. He looked great this visit, as always, and we just pray for his continued strength. I always try to remember this saying: The Will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.

DIY Closet Shelving

Since our house was built in '69 it has had some pretty outdated parts to it:

Poop green bathroom- again, with towel bars inside the shower??

A kitchen where you can watch yourself do dishes (please notice the mirror above the sink)

Wood. Paneling. I don't think I need to elaborate on this...

Well, people, the ugliness didn't stop at the obvious things, it also included our closets, ALL of them. The bedroom closets were easy fixes with Rubbermaid closet systems purchased from Lowe's, and even the bathroom and coat closets were able to be remedied with these pieces. However, we have this little powder room that has a closet built in over our basement stairs and it is 43 inches wide. This was a problem because that meant it was too wide for one set of Rubbermaid shelves, but too thin for the 4 foot shelving without having to hack it down with a Dremel saw. So, I based my shelving on the same concept of another blog that I follow, Sawdust and Embryos, in their Closet Shelving Tutorial. It was a GENIOUS idea and so simple to do that even being preggers, I got 'er done!

I forgot to take a picture of the closet before I removed the old shelves- but picture this: slabs of wood that went from the very back to the very front of the cabinet. There were 3 of them and I couldn't see to the back of the shelves because they came so far forward. Plus, they had some nasty stains and stuff (shudder)- yuck!

I'm so thankful my Dad decided I needed a miter saw- it was my best friend on this project! Here's all my 1x4's cut to size to fit the melamine shelving that we purchased- on sale, booyah!

After finding the studs and marking them all the way up the back wall of the closet I began installing the wood pieces that will act as my shelf brackets. I just used drywall screws we already had on hand from our basement reno. They worked like a charm. P.S. Please notice the dark papery stuff on the bottom of the closet. This closet doesn't go all the way to the floor since it's over the stairs, and the previous owners just put this ugly stone and glitter linoleum up the side and on the bottom of the closet. Despite all my valiant efforts, I couldn't get it off- so instead I decided I would just cover it up with something else that you'll see later.

I made sure to drill the screws into the wood slightly so that I would be able to fill in over them with putty.

All the pieces in and puttied, waiting to be sanded the next day.

In the S&E Tutorial they also used melamine shelving and then glued and heat-adhered on pieces over the raw edges of the melamine. I decided to just skip a step and get melamine that had a finished front edge- I didn't care about the other edges since they would be facing the walls.


I marked the length of my shelves and then covered the marks with painter's tape and remarked- I was worried the table saw would chip the shelving. I don't know if it actually made a difference, but it sure didn't chip!

Remember I said I was covering up that paper crap on the bottom? I did it with 1/4 inch birch plywood, brad-nailed it down and filled in all the brad nail holes- I kind of nailed the bajeebers out of it! Wood putty was my next best friend on this DIY.

Finally I added a piece of corner trim over the seam and installed white baseboards on the inside. The closet walls and wood brackets received a coat of a light gray paint and the baseboards and new "floor" of the closet got a shiny coat of white with a few coats of water-base polyurethane to help keep the surface durable since I'm storing occasional use cooking items on it: roaster, bread maker, etc.

I can see everything on my new shelves!

And everything looks organized and fabuloso!

A New Blessing

Jerod and I have been very fortunate in our life together to have family and friends available to support us, jobs to help us provide for our beautiful little girl, Cailyn, and another opportunity to expand our little family!

That's about what life looks like from my eyes these days, and I couldn't be happier. But, I also can't lie- this pregnancy hasn't been carefree and giddy like when I was pregnant with Cailyn. I suppose having a miscarriage just does that to a woman. I pray about it every night, for God to watch over our both of our growing children. I'm doing the best I can to trust in His will and believe that no matter what happens we'll be okay, but I honestly- I just really hope that we don't have to go through a loss like that again. So, I guess for now we'll just keep on praying for a healthy pregnancy.

We hit week 15 this past Saturday, and this munchkin is due on October 5th- a week before my brother Tom's wedding to his gal Michelle. It should make things very interesting that's for sure! Not to mention having an actual maternity leave with this one, instead of just having a baby over summer vacation. When I went in for my last appointment baby had a heartbeat in the 150's, just like Cailyn did at that same time. Jerod's pretty sure he's always going to have girls, he thinks he's cursed!

I can't help but feel slightly guilty- we were so lucky to have conceived again so quickly. I know it doesn't happen so easily for other couples, and my thoughts are with anyone who has struggled with conception or miscarriage. It is so heartbreaking and emotionally draining, we just had a small taste of what some people go through and I truly hope those people find the happiness they are looking for. In the meantime, I'm going to pray for them and for us and try my best to take this pregnancy one day at a time and enjoy every minute I'm given with this baby, no matter how long or short that may be.

Hi, we're the Browns!

Just in case you forgot who we were since it's been SO LONG since my last blog post. I thought of a few of the usual excuses:

"We've been SO busy!"

"My mom's cousin's dad's brother's uncle's best friend's sister needed help with something obscure."

"My dog at my homework!" ......wait, that one might not fly....

Anyway, the truth is: I have been really lazy minus the one weekend I began working on our craft room/powder room closet project (which I'm so excited to post pictures on once at least one of the three projects to do in there is finally done- maybe over Spring Break). So, since I don't really have one special thing to post about, I'll just dump a ton of photos from the last 6 weeks and catch you up on some of our happenin's.

A Very Evans Visit

Over Winter break (okay, so that's more than 6 weeks ago- sue me) some of our college friends came up to watch football and eat and drink way too much. A couple of these friends are our pals Shane and Alison who are living out in Cali right now with their baby gal Kylie, awaiting the arrival of Baby Evans Numero Dos in the summer. This was Kylie and Cailyn's first meet and greet with each other and it was an eye opening experience for our little miss.

She was very interested in anything Alison had to do to care for Kylie

Cailyn is so used to having everything to herself- she was a little sad when Kylie was playing with Mommy's water bottle and she didn't get to take it away like she had planned

Kylie had a rough day playing with a big kid- what better way to calm the nerves than an ice cold Bud heavy

The best part of making cookies is NOT the finished product- it is the raw cookie dough, period.

Nap time in her own room = playing with her toys until falling asleep in the rocking chair

It's the face- it's priceless!

"Mwah-ha-ha-ha, Daddy looks like a gril!"

A new found interest in coloring- yup, that's be the window...

In this house, our children are sweet enough to eat.

She gets her cooking skills from her mother, and her dressing while cooking skills from her father- a T-shirt with sparkly boots is Jerod's go-to for a successful meal

A Happy 50th to Debbie

My Aunt recently turned a fabulous 50 years old, and Cailyn had a blast! The girl was a dancing fool, but who can blame her? The dance floor was incredibly inviting to all kids with the lights on the floor- for a while she just chased them and smacked them on the floor. When the big kids came out to dance though, or the "Babies!" as Cailyn calls them, she was more than ecstatic to join in.

Stylin' and profilin'- this was right before she was choked out, had her sunglasses stolen, and then got a hug hidden as a bite from another child, Cailyn took it in stride- I was more worked up about it than she was...

My aunt and cousin decorated themselves and I was so impressed- it was chic but fun, and they said they got most of it right after Halloween and saved some moo-la that way!

If you don't laugh out loud when seeing this picture then you are not human- she looks like she's dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe....it was actually Gangam Style I believe

Mommy leaves the bathroom for 5 seconds with the Noxema jar open and this is what happens:

When Grandma comes to stay that means iPhones, pop tarts, and basically anything else Cailyn wants

1-3 inches my foot!

So far we've gotten 12.5 inches so I'd say the weather people kinda misread this one, huh? In any case, it meant an early dismissal, no school, and time to blog! Jerod was a good Daddy and took Cailyn out for a tumble in the snow after nap.